New market ?

[Steve B]

with pc prices dropping like a rock how come no one has taken
a small form facter board and loaded it itnto a nice wooden chess board.?
could easaly have 4 to 8 gigs of ram.honken hard drive loaded with
all the best commercial and public engines.
have a monitor port,plugs for a mouse and key pad(or blue tooth),
a bunch of usb ports(for external dvd,or even built in),built in wifi and land,etc...
then when you were done playing chess,bingo!its a regular pc.
sounds cool to me,and should cost a lot less then 3100 euro's.

giving away another million dollar idea regards,
mike

Actually Mike
something just like that was tried more then 15+ years ago
it was called the Mephisto Wunder Machine and sold for about $7,500

it served as a bridge between the dedicated computer and the then modern PC
very few were actually sold and to own a working one is considered the "Holy Grail" of schachcomputer collecting:

http://www.schachcomputer.at/wundermaschine2.jpg

Wunder Bread Regards
Steve

[mephisto]

Hi
Here's what I produced with the Novag Citrine, a Tablet PC plus Rybka running within Arena software.
http://gardenshednews2.yolasite.com/
Regards
Bryan

[NaltaP312]

Very nice and yes, the best it to use with a retro design and with your choosen engines.

Very nice i like it.
I hope Novag or saitek will done some piece like this :no pc connected, just wood pleasure

YC

[M ANSARI]

Actually I think the best solution would be to have something that uses Wifi or the new Bluetooth that has a larger range. The board should have the absolute minimal energy requirement possible. Something like a passive input - output should not require too much power. I know that there is already technology to identify squares and pieces and the input - output interface can probably be procurred very cheaply, so this entire thing would not be too expensive to use. Hell, with minor code written you could have that thing play on Playchess online.

[skoony]

hi steve,
7,100 dollero's.
thats what i'm getting at.
a friend of mine is making me a wooden board.
thats fine with me,ihave a extra set of pieces.\my cost 45 dollars u.s..

2 and a half by same,walnut cherry oak.
i found the pieeces at a thrift store for 2.99,
no she-ite.
20 to 30 dollar value.

just put a switch on the board,chess or comp.
the interface should be childs play for our good friends here.

blow any dedicated away regards,
and i want residuals.
mike

[mephisto]

Hi
Here is more info and photos of the Mephisto board that Steve told you about earlier.
http://www.schach-computer.info/wiki/in ... ermaschine
Bryan